


Lost in the woods

by selunchen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Also I don't know where this is going, Ben is an FBI agent, But they don't do it, F/M, Maybe - Freeform, Modern AU, Rey is a scavenger/criminal, Reylo - Freeform, and Rey needs to not traffic weapons, because they are doing it now!, but Ben needs to say sorry, but probably somewhere nice, hints at underage relationship, prompts, smutty smut hut, this fic updates on prompts, we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-24 01:30:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen
Summary: We are lost in the woods - the woods of our past, present and future. Lost in the pain, the hurt and the anger, with no torch to guide us. you can lead me by the hand, but we will never reach the destination you seek for us. Thus, we are lost in the woods.-Ben finally found her. After years of looking and searching, he finds her here, in the forest.However, Ben soon discovers that taking Rey out of the criminal life and providing for her doesn't entail Rey being able to leave that life behind.-





	1. Chapter 1

Prompt by [Riaria84](https://riaria84.tumblr.com/)

Skinny dipping

Has to contain mention of

  * Campfire
  * Lost in the woods
  * Dog/puppy



* * *

 

**Skinny dipping**

 

In movies, when people are lost in the woods, they light a fire. They circle around this surprisingly easily lit pile of appropriately sized and dried wood and then they are safe. Safe from harm, from animals and from the cold.

 

Rey is not safe.

 

And Rey cannot be safe, Rey cannot start a fire. Which she really really wants to because she is drenched to the bone because it just won’t stop _fucking_ raining!

 

However, it has mostly something to do with fire working _really_ well on wet wood.

 

And maybe a little bit to do with the fact that she doesn’t _have the time_ to find appropriate firewood when that stupid godforsaken FBI agent has been hot on her tails since Wisconsin.

 

It also fucking doesn’t help that its Ben Solo and his stupid face who is _that_ FBI agent.

 

Fucking stupid asshole Ben Solo.

 

Rey clenches her fists, the sound of branches cracking as she walks as fast as possible through the dense forest. The rain travels down her face and neck and further down her breasts and stomach, making her clothes cling to her thin body. Its prickling kind of cold and her breath is harsh and it hurts in her chest. How many miles has she walked?

 

It had to be him, didn’t it?

 

Alanis Morissette could rewrite that stupid song _ironic_ only around this exact moment.

 

Because the person who inevitably set her on this path of crime was also the one trying to bring her to justice. Stupid fucking asshole dickhead _“FBI agent”_ Ben Solo.

 

He, _he_ , had the audacity to leave her behind in Jakku with her dreadful foster father Plutt so he could be a crime fighter. So he could stop men like Plutt. He knew. He must have known what kind of man Plutt was. He must have known that Rey didn’t have a choice.

 

What had he actually imagined would befall her when he left?

 

She had no one. She was no one. All she could rely on what was her wits and her skills of survival. Two things that work really well when transporting hot goods.

 

Had he expected, when he returned, that she would be settled? Picture perfect? She didn’t even finish high school.

 

How _dare_ he look so surprised and hurt, when he caught her the first time 10 hours ago. The nerve. The audacity!

 

How dare he judge her for when he left her.

“REY!”

 

She whips her head to look behind her from where his voice resounds. Her throat goes dry and she wills herself to set into a sprint. Despite how heavy her feet is. Despite how tired she is.

 

How far is she from the Canadian border? Not far?

 

The sky is overcast. It would have been easier to navigate if she could just get a sense of where the sun was. All she could see and know was that the light slowly lessened and lessened and it couldn’t be long now until it was dark. Not much longer. She could lose him in the darkness.

 

He doesn’t deserve to catch her.

 

She had seen it in his eyes - as he had slowly opened the door of his black Mercedes, looking puzzled and confused at finding _her_ at the motel - that he wanted to help her. He wanted to free her. His compassion and his belief in her was too seductive. He was seduced by the idea of her coming with him, joining his cause, mending her ways. He refused to believe that Rey was a criminal. A scavenger. Not that bright little kid he took care of at the junkyard. Rey scoffed loudly.

 

No. Rey is a woman now. 21 years.

 

“Rey! For fuck’s sake. STOP!”

 

She doesn’t.

 

If there is one thing she had learned in the last four years at Plutt’s - don’t stop when the police tell you to. Run.

 

Until he _fucking_ shoots at the tree next to her.

 

Rey flinches and stalls her run as the bark hit her hard, some of it strikes and breaks her skin. She shakes her hand roughly to distract her from the hurt and turns her head towards him - dangerously slow. Eyes narrowed.

 

You don’t run from guns.

 

He is out of breath but still keeps his weapon at eyesight, pointed at her. Chest heaving as he regards her, probably taking in her disheveled state. Probably noticing how thin she is. How greasy her hair is. How _fucking_ not happy she is right now.

 

He looks amazing for someone who has chased a young woman through a rainy forest and he is like what ...30? Stupid Ben Solo. Of course, his stupid black curly hair is even more stupidly pretty when drenched in water. Of course, he looks amazing, even when his voice sounds angry, his big brown eyes yearn and scream at her - _are you okay? please tell me you are okay._

 

“What.the.hell. Rey”

 

She knows what to do. She has done it before. Rey straightens her back.

 

“Just let me go, Ben.”

 

“Rey. You know I can’t” he doesn’t lower his gun.

 

Good. He shouldn’t trust her. Nobody at the junkyard or the other scavengers did.

 

A few moments pass and he does that stupid thing with his mouth, like as if he is physically chewing his way through a thought. It is stupid.

 

Ben makes a mistake. He opens his mouth to say something and looks at his shoes. It's her chance. She rushes forward, bends her elbow and smacks his gun out of his hand. It falls to the ground and they both jump towards it. Rey lands hard and it hurts her shoulder and ribs, pain flashing like lightning through her body. They wrestle, they turn and tangle their limbs, both reaching for the gun.

 

He’s so fucking tall that stupid dickhead motherfucker Ben Solo and his hand grasp at the gun.

 

Rey kicks him in the stomach, temporarily immobilizing him and rushes to the left.

 

Fuck it’s a lake.

 

It will have to do.

 

She throws herself into the waters and starts swimming.

 

“REY!” she ignores him. “REY!”

 

From behind her, she hears the water move and splash. He is following her.

 

Luckily the lake is less cold than she feared, but her clothes cling to her body and drag her down. The water wraps around her body, prisoning her in its dark embrace, pulling at her jacket. She needs to lose the jacket. With one sip and two shrugs of her shoulder, she throws the navy colored bomber off and straight at his face.

 

He catches it while his feet slide at a rock, dunking him completely under the surface.

 

Rey would have laughed at any other circumstance, but she is fleeing for her fucking life. This guy, who she thought she had something special with, is the one chasing her. She manages to get a few feet ahead, as he struggles to catch up, calling her name, taking one clumsy step at the time across the lake’s rocky bottom.

 

She could make it!

 

Until his hand grabs her roughly at the shoulder and pulls her back. Rey turns fast, shoving her hands against his chest, spraying water into his eyes. Ben closes them hard and sputters “Stop it!”

 

They wrestle and she gets a few good punches in, but he stills her by wrapping his arms around her forcefully. She’s breathing so hard and he is too. Rey feels his chest rise and falls against hers, his hand grasping her tight, nails digging into her skin.

 

“Stop.” He swallows “Please”.

 

Ben caresses one of her arms with his hand. It both calms and agitates her, mostly the later, and she begins to squirm. Somehow that angers him, something she has never ever truly had experienced directed at her. With a hand on each arm he pushes her away from him, so he can look her in the eye.

 

He is searching for something in them. What, she is not sure of. Brown on brown. It is getting dark and while the rain has stopped, they are both drenched - mostly by standing in a freaking lake - but he seems so much bigger than when she saw him last four years ago.

 

“Shit Rey. Are you okay?”

 

She blinks.

 

“What?”

 

“Are you okay?” He looks so concerned, like that time he heard Plutt hadn’t fed her all week. Like that time he had spotted her in the trash behind a McDonalds.

 

Too bad he left her, so she could continue starving.

 

Ben looks so intense.

 

She had forgotten how all-consuming obsidian his eyes can be and finds herself suddenly so _unsure_. She whispers “Ben?”

 

Then he’s hugging her, so tight, there’s a hoarseness to his voice. “Oh shit. shit. It is you. You are really here”

 

What.

 

Hesitantly, she circles her arms around him, reciprocating his affection - just a little. She hears him asking her stuff, she hears him say her name, but honest to god, she is a little bit - if not A LOT - confused right now. Rey doesn’t hear anything of what he says.

 

She feels his lips on her temple and something in her breaks. Something in her snaps.

 

He kisses her cheek. Rey can see it from the corner of her eye, how his dark eyelashes flutter shut. Something settles in her stomach and the water doesn’t seem nearly that cold anymore.

 

Except like - he just fucking shot at her. So she tells him.

 

“you shot at me.”

 

He stills.

 

She can feel him swallow and after a tense moment, he replies. “Yeah. Shit. sorry.”

 

“You.shot.at.me”

 

He hasn’t moved, why isn’t he moving? Why is he hugging her tighter, why does he feel so warm?

 

Rey sighs and just goes with it, because she is really really exhausted right now and it’s hard to ignore him, hard to not lean into him. He’s here. He’s really here. And he’s kissing her hair so tenderly. Her greasy grimy hair.

 

If she was a woman who was capable of self-reflection and honesty, she would admit that the reason why she doesn’t struggle is that she wants this. However, Rey isn’t that kind of woman, so she pretends it’s because he holds her too tightly, that she is just looking for an escape.

 

She feels his eyelashes brush against her skin and then dark brown eyes look into hers. Her breath stills in her chest. This stupid beautiful twat.

 

“You asshat” it comes out as a whisper.

 

Ben smiles. Why does he smile? Stop that.

 

One hand moves to cup her cheek. Why does he do that? Stop it.

 

She doesn’t stop him.

 

“I’m glad you’ve expanded your vocabulary’’

 

Is her heart supposed to go this fast? Is it supposed to smash against her rips with such force that she thinks she might die? Her throat is so dry and he is standing their, wet hair, wet skin and he looks at her like she is everything.

 

She is fleeing to Canada.

 

Fuck it.

 

Rey kisses him. Smashes her mouth onto his. It doesn’t feel all-consuming, it feels more like a goodbye, a last resort. Like _I’ve always wanted to try this._

 

_It feels like childhood memories and lost innocence._

 

He kisses her back.

 

Ben’s lips are so soft, so caring and he kisses her.

 

why is he kissing her?

 

One hand goes from her arms to one around her waist and the other to her hair.

 

It’s like his heat mends her and while she is so cold from the rain and the lake, she doesn’t feel the chill any longer.

 

Rey is fleeing to Canada.

 

Rey is never gonna see Ben again.

 

Rey breaks the kiss and takes off her shirt. Rey indulges her teenage dreams and broken hearts. She will regret and feel remorse later when she hides in an abandoned house. That’s what she does, she mends herself, because she only has herself.

 

He stares at her in surprise, in awe, his warm hands traveling the expanse of her back. It tingles. Their breaths short and shallow. She throws the shirt to the lake bed. Her bra follows and she begins to remove her pants, then grabs her face and just _snogs_ her.

 

It's difficult, in a lake, to move, but they manage to kiss and remove their respective clothes while trespassing on this newly discovered territory between them. He looks better without that yellow FBI logo on his clothes. He looks more like himself.

 

Ben grunts her name as he grabs her by the waist and pulls her close to him. And they just kiss. Kiss with tongues. Kiss with closed mouths. Kissing jaws, and cheeks and eyelids. He devours her.

 

16-year-old Rey had always imagined this moment to be less rough, tense and awkward. Less like a compromise, as if he is giving in to her fantasies and desires, and more a genuine act of love and reciprocation.

 

He touches her clit and dips a finger in her. It feels weird in the water, but she could hardly care, as she arches her back and exclaims. “Fuck, Ben”

 

“I’m trying” a curt reply. He sounds distracted, intent, like this is overwhelming him too.

 

This stupid motherfucking piece of shit piece of a man called Ben Solo. “I can’t. Just do it” Rey doesn’t have time for this. The pretend that this is a tender passionate moment and not her just taking a memory for her to cherish in her self-imposed exile.

 

Ben tugs his pants and underpants off and roughly lifts her so she is positioned right at his dick.

 

Why does he look at her like that? Why does he look like he is in love with her and this is everything he ever wanted.

 

Liar.

 

 _I’ll come back_ he said.

 

Liar.

 

He only found her when he was forced to.

 

He slides into her, holding her tightly, two big hands on her ass. Rey gasps at the sensation, both because it feels so so good, but mostly because it is a silent surrender. A silent surrender to him. A silent surrender to addressing the hurt. It hurts to do. It hurts to open herself to him again.

 

His fingers tighten on her thighs, digging in slightly, and she squirms as she locks her ankles around his lower back.

 

Ben kisses her violently, like a man thirsting for water, like a man finding a thing he thought long forgotten, and she lets him. Lets him kiss her and buck into her, because right now she thinks they are too far gone to talk. He shot at her, she punched him in the face, they fucking tried to drown each other in the lake. This can’t be salvaged or addressed with words.

 

So they fuck.

 

It was honestly the last thing she thought she’d ever do with him. Not that she didn’t fantasize about him as a teenager, not that she didn’t imagine him crawling through her window and take her silently (to avoid waking Plutt), not that she didn’t yearn for him to come back and sweep her off her feet. She knew better though. He was 10 years older than her, he came from a wealthy family. He would never feel that way about her.

 

Ben didn’t save her then and he isn’t saving her now.

 

So she stops thinking and just feels him. Feels how her body trembles as he buries himself into her, kissing and gnawing at her vertebrae on her neck. Rey gasps and bucks, moving with him in the lake.

 

It’s not loving, they are not making love. This is rough and desperate but in an awesome all-consuming way. Rey’s stomach flutters as he bites his lip and trysts into her hard and almost like he can’t help it.

 

Maybe one time, 16-year-old Rey would say she loved this man, that she was in love with him. But...it is really really hard to love someone when he leaves you. Rey would really like to love Ben.

 

She sobs, equally from pleasure and equally from pain, but hides it in his neck. Pretending that there’s nothing more to her sounds than his innate ability to make her feel so so good. Rey thinks she hears him whisper something, but it's hard - it is…

 

“Oh. Ben.” Ah. “Oh fuck.”

 

He whispers her name, kisses her again, lovingly and she is having sex with him in a fucking lake near fucking Canada and she is on the fucking run.

 

“I can’t believe I finally found y,ou” He says hoarsely, grunting as his dick stutters within her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

 

What.

 

Ben grabs her hard, his mouth violently clashing against hers as they move with each other, skin against skin, the water moving like a stormy sea around them.

 

It’s a taking. But Rey is ascending, Rey is forgetting. She’s so full and he’s so close to her, like he was always meant to be. She has to grasp for something and digs her nails into his back. Ben winches. He likes the pain.

 

Good.

 

Ben fucks into her. Hard and violently and he’s reaching all of the good spots and they should really just have submitted to each other years ago because this is -

 

He cums hard, she doesn’t, and holds her tight, so tight. His naked chest against hers, her nipples hard against the pale skin. Ben doesn’t stop kissing her, whispering things she can’t pick up entirely.

 

“you - here”, “Jakku - Plutt”, “where - found you!”

 

Rey has never gone skinny dipping before, but with her clothes thrown at the shore and only her socks still on, she believes this might be the closest to it she’ll ever come. It reminds her of a childhood she’ll never have. He cradles her cheeks and looks at her so tenderly that it hurts.

 

“you are real. Oh gawds Rey. You look stunning. You’ve become so beautiful” He whispers endearing words, _beautiful, strong, missed you..._

 

... _Become_.

 

Of course, he hadn’t seen her grow up.

 

He left.

 

There’s a reason pride is one of the deadly sins. Why pride and hurt are two dreadful combinations.

 

If Rey’s pride and Rey’s hurt hadn’t so fully overcome her, she would have listened. Would have heard that he loved her, would have heard that he had gone back to look for her, heard that he found her gone, heard that he wanted her so so much.

 

Pride prevents you from hearing that. It whispers toxic things. It whispers lies and false truths. To Rey it whispers and confirms his betrayal, confirms his nonchalance, confirms that he doesn’t care - despite like literally just kissing and fucking her passionately a moment ago.

 

Rey gulps and slowly untangles herself from him. He questions her. Ben looks sad, confused.

 

She swims to the shore to gather her clothes, he follows her closely, asking her. _What are you doing? Wait. Rey? Listen. Rey?_

 

Ben doesn’t force her. He doesn’t demand her to listen or to stay, he watches and tries to reason with her. _You are something to me. Please._

 

She puts on pants on, her shirt, still wet from the rain. He tries to kiss her, tries to shower her with affection. Apologizes for shooting at her. He would never have hit her. He swears to it.

 

A dog barks in the distance, flashlights flickers and voices are calling.

 

Rey looks at Ben.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Ben's POV of his history with Rey and her arrest. *holds out hand like Kylo Ren on the Supremacy* Please.  _ Prompt by  [ANG_the_Nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANG_the_nerd/pseuds/ANG_the_nerd)

 

-

 

The car is silent.

 

The forest is dark.

 

The forest moves absently in the night, as the black Mercedes cruise by rows and rows of North American pine trees. The only sounds that can be heard are the humming motor and the silent breathing of the car’s passengers. 

 

Ben looks at his watch.  _ 3 am _ . 

 

He releases that breath of air he has been holding ever since they left the lake, trying to curb his growing exhaustion. He silently looks over his shoulder to the backseat.

 

Rey is still, slumped over, bruised and battered with her hands cuffed behind her back. The blanket he has placed gently on her shoulders cover her body like a shadow and Ben finds her looking so vulnerable and unprotected. Like someone has failed her. Someone like him. 

 

They have been driving for almost 3 hours, yet her eyes remain fixed on the car floor. He stretches his neck to look, but there’s nothing but the synthetic carpet, not even a spot of dirt.

 

They have not said a word to each other since the FBI agents rounded her up and forced her gentle face into the dirt as they cuffed her. 

 

Nothing has been said.

 

And she still won’t look at him.

 

Why won’t she look at him?

 

He holds his gaze a little longer before turning his attention back on the road; arms crossed over his chest. There’s a hurt in his heart he can’t, but mostly won’t, identify. It’s a prickling cutting sensation, like a small knife gently turning from side to side. Except it isn’t gentle. It hurts. it stings. 

 

Ben has always been good at self-denial. A champion one could say. So instead of accepting Rey’s natural silent demeanor to being caught, beaten and dragged along, he feels her silence as rejection. A personal attack.  _ She didn’t feel the same. She regrets it.  _

 

He scoffs in his seat. 

 

His thoughts are a scramble, a mess, but one thing remains clear as day. That memory of them in the lake. How it felt, to have her arms around him, his arms around her, how they had kissed in a way, he had never ever felt being kissed before. When she had encouraged him to take her, to push into her, his body had been nothing but butterflies,  _ of yes, finally, let me have this _ , of love, of  _ Rey I have missed you so much _ . She seemed like she wanted it. Wanted him.

 

She had kissed him like she wanted him.

 

Then why won’t she even look at him!?

 

He closes his eyes, resting his head against the car seat, slightly too short for him. 

 

There’s a headache forming over his right eye, a tense encompassing kind of pain, that makes it hard to focus. 

 

Ben brings his hand to his face and rubs his fingers on the tense spot. The red-haired, very put together, driver considers him but doesn’t reply. Hux was it? There’s something unsettling in the way his coworker regards him, but Ben ignores it.

 

That headache tells him something. Despite it all, despite his feelings, Ben had fucked up. 

 

Because he fucking fucked her.

 

He fucked Rey.

 

Fucking shit. 

 

He really was an asshat of astronomical proportions. 

 

-

 

The local police station had an air of bitterness. Like stale cigarettes and bad ventilation. The walls distinctively yellow like no one had bothered to renovate it since the seventies, with stains and mold patches decorating the surface.

 

Ben flicks a hand through his sweaty black curls, while his other hand presses the button on the coffee maker. The is a distinct gurgling sound as if the machine is on its dying breath. He frowns at the murky flood water piling up in the porcelain cup, followed by a sour smell that makes him grinch his nose. 

 

He removes the cup and places another one underneath the tap. It reads “Grandad #1”. He snorts.

 

It’s 5 am. It will have to do. 

 

Yet, despite being caffeinated and having changed into a red flannel shirt, Ben finds himself nervous as he stands in front of the door to the interrogation room. The grey-blue metal door screams at him to stop, to turn around, but instead, he takes the handle and wobbles in with the two full cups in one hand. 

 

“Coffee?” he asks the young woman at the table. 

 

Rey doesn’t reply and switches nervously on the cool metal chair but it is almost morning and she could really use the energy. 

 

He places the other cup in front of her expectantly and sits down on the chair opposite hers. Ben sips quietly from his cup, glancing at her hesitantly as they wait for his coworker to show for the interrogation. 

 

Rey doesn’t touch it.

 

“You don’t like coffee?” He replies. “I can get you something else. Water? Coke?”

 

She whispers. “I am fine.”

 

They fall into another round of silence. For the first time in years, Ben finds himself at a loss. While not the most eloquent man, he does know how to small talk. Knows how to make captives and alike talk. However, Rey is nothing like those, so right now he has no idea what to say. Mostly because where should he begin?

 

He could apologize, but he isn’t really sorry.

 

He could ask her where she had been, but he already knows that.

 

He could ask her if she is okay, but she obviously isn’t.

 

He could ask her if she has been thinking about him too. Like he had thought about her the last four years.

 

The coffee bites his mouth as he attempts to curb his churning emotions and drown the feelings of inner misery.

 

He might be the worst, most incompetent agent in the entire force. How many agents chase a woman, shoots at her, drags her into a lake only to have the most amazing sex? Only to have the opportunity to taste her lovely mouth, her salty rainy skin. 

 

Yup.

 

Snoke will be having a very  _ friendly _ chat with him about the code of conduct because he just violated 50 of them. 

 

That is not the knife that keeps turning in his chest though. The one that makes his head hurt. No. 

 

He sighs. What is fucking disastrous about  _ this _ , is that he fucked a young  _ vulnerable _ woman. 

 

The evidence is right there in the mocking yellow file on the center of the table, reading Rey Niima on top. A heavy stuffed file relaying the story of a woman who had been had been a victim of violence, manipulation, and neglect. A woman who had been forced into a life of trafficking, of thievery and scavenging. A woman whom he hadn’t managed to get out, even though he had tried. 

 

He sees a familiar newspaper clipping hanging from the corner of the tattered edges of the file. The headline only partially readable, but he knows what it says. 

 

**\- SCANDAL IN THE ORGANA ADMINISTRATION: Senator Organa Solo’s son arrested for sexual escapades with an underage girl at the** **_Organa center for young adults -_ **

 

It had all been lies of course. Ben would never engage with a 16-year old that way, but it didn’t matter. One headline, one arrest and the subsequent clean-up from his mother had been what ultimately had driven him and Rey apart. 

 

He was still paying back interest for the china set he ruined that night. 

 

The unfortunate monetary expenses aren’t what has him on the edge though. It isn’t even the fact that it has affected his family so bad that even today his mother as a senator has to defend it occasionally.

 

No. It is the fact that his affection for this young strong girl has truly forced her further into Plutt’s grasp.

 

He had met her in the soup kitchen, where he had done volunteer work for his mother.  _ “It will look good on your criminology master’s application” _ she had said. Rey had been pretty, no doubt about it, but it was her story of loneliness and rejection that had made him abandon all rationale and become her confidant. Ben knew how Rey felt about him. Knew the look she would give him in the quiet of the night. However, he couldn’t make himself indulge his own growing feelings. Despite secretly counting the days to her 18th birthday. 

 

He had told her so, had instead they remain friends. Secret friends. With secret words between them. It had been a secret. A secret that she held the affections of a rich young man of a powerful family. 

 

Secrets have a tendency to escape though and with his arrest and the media frenzy, their alliance had demolished. 

 

And while Plutt may be fat and gross, he wasn’t an idiot with no eyes for opportunity.

 

Rey knew that.

 

Ben knew that. 

 

The coffee cools in his hands as he swirls the content in a soothing motion, its companion sitting still in front of this now grown woman in front of him. Ben sees her fidget, he sees her concern.  _ Plutt’s men are everywhere.  _

 

“I won’t let anything happen to you” in an attempt to calm her.

 

“You have already let things happen to me.”

 

Ben’s eyes snap to hers, but she continues to avoid his gaze. He feels his fist involuntarily clench hard on the porcelain cup in his hands. 

 

She blames _him_?

 

There is an hotness spreading in his throat and his jaw tightens. Anger. 

 

Where was Hux?

 

Suddenly she asks as if she finds that her mouth works after all. “Where are the others?” 

 

Her throat bobs. “the ones who were fleeing with me.” 

 

Something bitter and vile settles in Ben's soul. Something a tune to jealousy and it makes him throw all caution to the wind because he is a stupid hothead with anger issues. He finds himself replying.

 

“you mean the traitorers, murderers, and thieves you call friends?” 

 

Rey's brow furrow and she crosses her arms in defiance. Still refusing to look at him. Ben tilts his head upward, feeling that hurt consume his being once more.” you'll be relieved to hear that I have no idea.” 

 

Silence. No smart reply from her.

 

Hux still hasn’t arrived, so Ben pushes the button on the recorder and it clicks as the tape start to turn. 

 

“Tell me about the weapons we found in the back of your truck.”

 

Rey snaps her head to him. Surprised? Eyes wide. Hazel brown. He has never really noticed… 

 

Ben considers her, analyzes her, why was she surprised that he was doing his job? ( _ maybe because you really weren’t doing your job when you caught her? a traitorous voice whispers in the back of his mind _ )

 

A moment passes and slowly her face contorts into an expression of anger, of betrayal, of resolution.

 

“I’m not giving you anything.”

 

He feels it. So strong. So potent. The fire under his skin crawls with indignation and  _ just let me help you, don’t fucking fight me.  _

  
“We’ll see.”

 

Time is a peculiar thing. On one hand in front of him sits the spitting image of the young woman he once knew. Ben could see her so clearly in every way. Her defiance, her hair, her face, her lips, the ways she puckers them when she is particularly upset. On the other hand, if he looked at her, really looked at her, he finds that the woman across from him is a complete stranger. The defiance, the disgust, and mistrust that guard her eyes are something he doesn’t recognize.

 

Time has a way of reuniting and pushing people apart. It has a way of making people grow into their own, grow into new people. Perhaps Rey had gained a knowledge and maybe even some wisdom that ultimately separated her from him. A knowledge that made her believe he is the  _ enemy _ . That he is at fault. 

 

A heavy sensation numbs Ben’s body, as he comes to the realization that he too has grown. He too has grown separate, that his path diverges from hers.

 

A numbness that comes from knowing that perhaps what had happened in the forest was nothing more than an ending to their story. A reverie, a pretense. A flicker in time where the present, the past and the future had been erased and two lonely memories found each other. 

 

Rey looked at him now. Really looked at him. And Ben considered her and found himself unable to determine who she was. He didn’t know this woman. So he puts on a mask. A mask of professionalism and nonchalance. If it hurt her, she didn't show. 

 

Hux enters, another file neatly tucked under his arm and as he crosses the room to sit at the table, he pulls out a picture and throws it on the table. 

 

“Monday the 13th of October a group of thieves broke in and entered a First Order military facility of.” 

 

-

 

Rey says nothing. 

 

They try to reason with her.

 

_ Give us Plutt’s whereabouts and we can minimize your sentence. _

 

_ Give us information and we can release you. _

 

_ Cooperate with us.  _

 

But nothing.

 

-

 

In the following afternoon, the local judge sets a bail. Rey looks like she hasn’t showered as he asked her to do.

 

-

Ben visits her in her holding cell, asks her if she has eaten.

 

She still refuses to speak with him.

 

He knows it is futile. They have no concrete proof of her guilt, except knowing of her affiliation with the crime syndicate. They didn’t even find her near the truck, but near enough for it to be suspicious. The judge had required further questioning, but with so little to hold her on, it was only a matter of days before she’d be let go.

 

Ben couldn’t watch her go.

 

-

 

“Mom. I need you to put down bail for someone.”

 

Her tired voice over the phone reminds him how late it is. “ _ Ben _ . What is this?”

 

\- 

 

“Someone paid your bail,” He says in the doorway, arms crossed lazily over his chest. 

 

Rey looks up at him confused.  _ Who _ ? her eyes ask. 

 

Ben shrugs and glances sideways, chewing his cheeks in a silent thought. With an exhale of breath he begins the conversation he knows he wants to have.

 

“You cannot leave the state by court mandate.”

 

“I know. I was there” she says bitterly.

 

He nods.

 

“Where do you plan on going?”

 

Rey pulls her knees to her chest, leaning her elbow on her knee, staring ahead in thought. “I don’t know”

 

Ben is 31 years old, but he finds himself so suddenly shy. A pink streak crosses his cheeks and he shifts on his feet before asks in an almost whisper.

 

“You can stay with me?”

 

silence.

 

“what?”

 

In an attempt to lessen the effect of her scrutinizing eyes, he straightens his back and coughs. “ I mean. I will be staying here for a while and...you know - with our history, I would be okay taking you in for a while.”

 

“I don’t need your pity,  _ Benjamin _ .” 

 

“It’s not pity,  _ Rey _ . I’m trying to help you” He hisses. 

 

“I’m not going to sleep with -” She grinds through her teeth, but he stops her with a hand. Humiliated and tired. “This has nothing to do with. Stop fooling yourself.”

 

“it is  _ pity _ then.”

 

“it’s  _ help _ Rey.”

 

“Well. Why help no one like me? No one from nowhere - isn’t that what you said back then?” Right. he did say that. 

 

Unclenching his fists, Ben steps into the cell, his eyes burning. “Maybe.”

 

Rey looks at him, partly unbelieving he almost admitted it and partly confused about where he is going with this. Silence passes, while they stare at each other, unsure of how to continue from here.

 

Ben raises his hand towards her, gloved to protect him from the autumn chill outside. “But not to me”  _ you are someone to me. _

 

There might be tears in eyes, but it is hard to see in the cell’s dim light. Rey stares at him somewhat in awe and half disbelief. Her hand unmoving. His hand outstretched in a welcome embrace. 

 

“Let me help you, Rey. Let me help you this time.”

 

Her brows furrow and he can see her hand twitch ever so slightly. As if she is considering it. 

 

“Please”

 

-

 


	3. Vespa, strawberries, and black manicure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two prompts in one:
> 
> Lost in the woods prompt: part 3! Rey moves in with Ben and we find out where Rey has been for 4 years. He also explains he was falsely accused.

-  
“What?”

Her hands flinch, her eyes twitch. Rey turns to look at the tall man behind her, her hands clutching the leather jacket hanging on the clothing rack tightly.

She sees him look away, gaze fixed on a spot on the ceiling – mouth moving as he mumbles “nothing”

“Oh no. that was not nothing.”

“It was.”

“why are you like this? That’s what you said right? You really said that.” At his refusal to admit that he *fucking* said that, she turns to face him fully. The elderly lady at the desk looks over at them. No. She isn’t going to let him get out of this fight, just because they are in a public place. No one is going to make her feel less than she is.

She is already good at that on her own.

He gives her a look, resembling something close to pity, but most of all an uncomfortable truth that he is too embarrassed to be with her in a thrift store. Too embarrassed about who she is, too embarrassed about her background, too embarrassed about something so…poor as going to a thrift store.

Rey feels that sinking toxic hot sensation in her body. She thinks she knew Ben. She thinks he had appreciated her for who she was, like back then. But no. He is like everyone else. Trying to mold her into what he wants her to be. Her choosing to find her clothes in a thrift store disappoints him.

Straightening her back and tilting her head in defiance, she grits “Why am I like this? That’s what you asked me. Well, let me tell you something. Why are you like this?”

Ben narrows his eyes, but she continues.

“We walk into this perfectly fine store and you have not spent a single moment not being a pain in my ass! Like negativity and pompous self-importance flying out of your ass.”

He leans down quickly, arms crossed, muttering sharply. “I am not fighting you in here.”

Bad move.

“Too fucking bad, _Benjamin_. We are gonna fight and I will fight you because I didn’t ask for this!”

Trying to get her to lower her voice, Ben lowers his, a rumbling pathetic sound from the back of the throat “I don’t understand why we can’t go to a normal store-“

“A. normal. store?” She blinks “What the hell is that even!?” A few people stop and turn their head in their direction. “I am not a _normal_ store girl. This has been my life. I go to thrift stores. I go to charities “

Ben swallows, she sees him eye the people looking and then something close to hurt flashes across his eyes and in a small voice he replies, “I’ll pay for it.”

Rey isn’t giving into this, “Oh, I am sure you would, but I am not a charity case”, pointing a finger sharply at him, trying to get the point across.

“Rey. It’s not charity…”

He’s frustrated. Good. They can be two frustrated people.

“Of course it is charity! I am dependent on you. I have no money, no clothes, because I can’t leave this pathetic excuse of a state to go home where my stuff is!-”

He opens his mouth to retort, but Rey interrupts “-you made sure of that.”

Silence.

His chest rises and deflates, racked, and the tips of his ears grow red. He’s angry. Good. Rey knows how to handle angry. She doesn’t know how to handle tenderness, camaraderie, love. She doesn’t know how to handle this.

“I made sure of that? What are you implying? Should I have left you alone? Let you go home?” Ben hisses.

“Yes!”

“Well, that’s not how it fucking works when you break the law, Rey! When you traffic weapons!”

“You have no proof of that!”

“Oh, don’t you fucking try that with me! I have plenty of proof –”

She shoved him.

She fucking shoved him.

Ben grabs her wrists, tight enough to hurt, tight enough to get his point across. _What the hell_ , she hears him grind as they struggle.

“- Stop that! Stop fucking fighting me and let me help you!” he, for the first time, yells.

“Yeah? Like that time back the soup kitchen. That was fucking super helpful _Benjamin_. Thank you. So, so much.”

She keeps wrestling his iron grip, but he stills, pain and suffering reeking off him. She feels his hands tighten ever so slightly on her wrists like he is contemplating something hurtful, something painful - and then he thrusts her back and stomps off down the clothing alley. Her back hits the hangers and for a moment she is so taken aback by his reaction that she simply stares at his back.

He stops at the counter, looking at the wallet in his hand. The elderly lady jumps as he throws a bunch of dollar notes on the desk, before he aiming for the exit, slamming the store door open and entering the parking lot. They hear a large shout, just at the door closes behind him.

Rey gulps. Her emotions churning, feeling both regretful, but at the same time truthful to herself. He didn’t own her.

-

She enters his car with three plastic bags worth of clothes. Apparently, he had thrown at least 300 dollars at the clerk and Rey knew how much that money meant for a place like this, so she had gone on a shopping spree. Buying a forest green jacket, four pairs of pants, some shirts, jumpers, socks, underwear (yes. She wasn’t picky) and some black sneakers.

Rey doesn’t look at Ben.

Ben doesn’t look at her.

The air is heavy and the tension is strong – yet no one braves to begin the series of apologies, because both believe they were the ones being wronged.

After a minute, where the silence remains unbreached, Ben puts the gear into drive and they exit the parking lot.

It was amazing how cruel they could be to each other.

She hadn’t remembered them ever being cruel to each other before.

-

They stop at the grocery store to buy food. Ben purchases a ton of vegetables, fruit and fresh meat. Rey looks at it all and finds herself intimidated because a bitter realization pops up in her already tired brain. She has no idea how to prepare or even name many of the things he effortlessly, with no thought, grabs from the shelves. All she knows is how to scavenge leftovers and warm up prepacked meals in the microwave. If it couldn’t go in there, then it was too complicated.

He places a tray of red sulky strawberries in the plastic cart and she feels overwhelmed, like everything sort of crashes down right now. Rey blinks back tears, letting out a sigh. Ben looks at her but just as quickly turns away.

-

Ben’s apartment is taken out of a freaking lifestyle magazine. The white unblemished walls, the wall to wall panorama windows overlooking the river, the black sleek leather furniture. Rey’s hands tighten on the plastic bags in her hands. She can’t breathe. This is not for her. She doesn’t belong here. Screw this place. Screw him. She wants to go back to Jakku. To the place she is familiar with and knows how works. Rey doesn’t know this world.

He coughs behind her, motioning with his shoulder for her to get inside.

Rey manages to take a step or two inside and he swooshes by her to deposit the groceries in the black shiny kitchen. She regards the apartment silently, finding it to encompass a big open kitchen -living room, two doors to her left and another door further into the living room, next to an almost empty bookshelf. It’s black and white. No color. It actually looks pretty unlived in. Not in the Jakku kind of way, where things were abandoned, messy, but the fact that there were no personal items. Nothing of consequence. No sign of Ben.

Perhaps this place is a foreign to him as it is to her.

She dumps the plastic bags on the floor with a thump and slowly walks to the windows. They are on the 13th floor and everything below her is so small. So minuscule. There’s a girl on a Vespa chatting with a guy across the street, leaning against the faded yellow frame. To Rey, it appears that they are flirting, but she could be wrong. Watching from this height, from privilege, can distort your view. She swallows that lump in her throat because at that moment she too realizes that whatever feelings she may still possess towards that man behind her, rummaging through the kitchen, that observation applies to him too. He, from his privilege, would never, never understand her. Never know her anguish.

If they looked up at her would they too only see the affluence, just as she only saw that in Ben?

Rey takes a hesitant glance over her shoulder, seeing his broad back turn on the oven and wallows in her misery. There is not only a glass ceiling between them. No. It’s a concrete wall. A concrete wall with a single tiny window for them to see each other through. The same window had been there too, all those years ago. Back then the window had been there, because they had a shared loneliness, of different kinds, but loneliness none the less. Now that window had shrunk to a tiny dot. A dot that only existed because of their shared history. Of what had happened.

Yet, it had grown, ever so slightly, when they had kissed and taken each other in that lake. There was something in that action that had told her that they were not done with each other. They were not finished. Not only history.

However, it is their history that ties them and thus their history is inescapable.

So, why is he pretending that they do not have things to talk about, that he has not said and done the things he has done?  
  
While Rey’s compassion had been a thing that made her gain friends and survive in her harsh environment – she was not one to forgive transgressions done to her or her friends.

Where ever they are.

Something tugs at her heart and she mumbles a silent prayer for their safety. For their lives.

She deposits herself on the couch and just sits there, watching the black mirror of the tv in front of her. She sees Ben in the reflection ever so often look at her, chewing on his cheek, opens his mouth only to close it again.

They hadn’t spoken since the thrift shop.

The rest of the evening passes like that. He makes pasta with baked eggplant (whatever that is), he turns on the tv, but she sees the anxiousness, the tension. At 10 he opens the door to his office, puts a duvet, a pillow and a blanket on the daybed and almost whispers that she will be sleeping in that room. Ben points at the door in the living room, _it’s my bedroom. If you need anything just knock._ Rey brushes her teeth in the black tiled bathroom and for the first time in a long time, she actually looks at her own reflection.

She looks like a fucking mess.

Dark circles under her eyes dress the now yellow-blue bruise on her temple. Her hair is greasy, sweaty and hangs dull around her face. It’s not like she has ever really looked good or beautiful. She has gone out a few times, but never dressed up with make-up – but this had been the worst she had ever seen herself.

She takes a deep breath, changes into a shirt and goes to the office next door.

The mattress is too soft.

-

In the morning Ben knocks on the door, tells her he has to go the headquarters downtown. He’ll be back at 5.

Rey doesn’t reply – exhausted from lack of sleep and turns to her side. Her fingers rub the cotton textile of her duvet and she does that one thing she always does. Pushes it down. Forces her feelings away. Forcing it all away. Deep down.

-

The river is beginning to collect the falling red leaves from the oak trees lining its bank. Autumn has arrived and rain hits the windows hard, trailing tears down the pane. Rey tightens the blanket around her body, her feet safely tucked away underneath the rough blue fabric in the uncomfortable recliner. A sigh escapes her lips as the red streaks down her cheeks finally dries.

That is how Rey spends the day in Ben’s apartment.

And something resolute settles in her stomach.

-

The clock on the wall read 5.40 when the keys turn in the front door.

Rey is twirling the sugar in her tea, hair still damp from the shower she took 20 minutes ago, when he turns the corner. He looks at her surprised. Maybe he hadn’t expected her to actually stay? Had he expected her to leave? She shifts on her feet and tilts her head slightly upwards, eyes moving back to the tea. The brown liquid moving in tandem with the spoon.

From the corner of her eye, she sees him move into the kitchen and places a paper bag on the counter with red italic Vietnamese letters. He bought take out.

Rey brings the cup to her mouth and sips slowly off the warm liquid. The air is not tense – but there is an element of uncertainty of what are we right now? She couldn’t really answer. Was she mad at him still? A part of her is, very much so. Yet what had been a full on blazing fire yesterday has instead turning frozen and solid. it is only newly frosted, which means that by the slightest trauma or confrontation it could break and catch light.

However, it is not only time that has been a factor in reducing her wrath. Another part of Rey, a less concrete, a more secretive part, yearns for him. A yearning that has followed her, trailing her like a second shadow since their encounter in the forest. A whispering yearning for him to turn, place his arms around her waist and kiss her neck. A childish wish for domestication. For him to whisper _hi, how was your day?_

A stupid childish dream.

She sees him place the FBI jacket on the bar stools at the breakfast bar. So he was in the field today. She wonders if he would tell her if he had found her friends. She wonders if he would be as kind to them as he is to her now. She hopes they are safe and sound. Hopes they managed to cross the border.

Rey doesn’t thrive being passive. Doesn’t thrive being inactive. However, she forces herself to be, because she also knows that if she wants to go home one day, challenging and confronting Ben will only make things much harder on her. There’s a briefcase next to the stool. Would it say anything she needed to know?

Ben coughs and breaks her trance. Her eyes dart to his. He seems shy, timid as he leans over the breakfast table on his elbows. “You okay?” Were his eyes always this intense? Always this brown? Like he could see right into her soul. Rey exhales and nods quickly. He nods back in recognition and points to the bag. “I bought some noodles or something. Do you want to eat now? Or…”

She takes the bag as an answer and moves to the dining table overlooking the river.

They eat in silence.

-

He is filling the dishwasher when she finally has the courage to ask him that one thing that has been bothering her all day.

“What now?”

Ben keeps pilling the plates, never turning to recognize her. “what do you mean?”

“Me. Am I to just stay here as a prisoner?”

“You are not a prisoner. You are free. You’re staying as my guest.”

“Yes, Ben. But for how long do you expect me to stay? At some point I’ll go to trial if I am acquitted you must know I won’t stay. You know I’ll go back, right?”

Now he does turn to her, brows narrowed in a question, in confusion. “Rey. What are you trying to say?”

“I am trying to make you answer my question. What now? Are you still on the case? Do you expect me to give you intel? Is this your weird way of trying to turn me? I won’t betray my friends” She crosses her arms hard. This will end in a fight. She knows it. But she won’t let him just continue on, pretending that everything is okay.

He swallows and moves his mouth while leaning back against the counter, hands gripping the black marble. “You really want to go back?”

Right to the point then.

“Stop deflecting. Answer my question”

“Rey are you serious? Your family? These people? Are you really telling an FBI agent that you are going back to crime?”

“What else would you have me do? It’s not like I can do anything else” She spits. It’s not that she wants to be a criminal, but she finds it hard to indulge him in her dreams and fantasies when he so viciously attacks everything she is and was. Like Finn, Rose and Poe are bad people. They are the best people.

“Well, I…you could go to school? Get an education?” he says with a streak of hope in his deep voice.

Rey blinks. “What? That’s what you want. I didn’t even like going to school. What makes you think I want to do that?”

“Rey. You are not even trying to make something better for yourself than that -“ he’s not yelling. Not quite. But he is riled up.

It is amazing how by just 5 minutes of conversation they have managed to break every bit of camaraderie and peace they have spent two days building.

She feels her chest heave and fall, before replying ferociously. “And what is good? What is better? Are you happy like this?”

“Rey. You cannot possibly compare _my life_ to whatever you have going on!”

“Going on? Going on! You talk as if I had a choice?! I am not like you, I didn’t have like a mom and dad who can swoop me up when things got rough.”

“My parents have nothing to do with you choosing to drop out of high school! Or choose to continue…” Now he is yelling.

Rey finds herself overwhelmed. Does he truly believe that she can just choose to not avoid Plutt? “Well. They sure hell made sure that when things went sour and you got arrested that you didn’t see me again. Hm! Remember that?”

His eyes narrow in disbelief, she sees his fists grab the table counter hard. “What!? We agreed to that! We agreed we needed to stop seeing each other.”

“I was 16! How was I to refuse you? And like with Plutt breathing down my neck, how could I not agree? I was fucking scared.”

“Rey…I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t! This is all about you, isn’t it? All of this is about what you want!” She draws in a thick ragged breath, her finger pointing accusingly at him. “- just like whatever you are trying to do now is about what you want. You want me to go to school, transform me into some sort of woman you could actually see yourself with instead of this poor fucked up foster kid! A fucking trophy girlfri-.”

SMASH

The shards fall instantly to the ground and lands on the leather couch. Ben’s breast lurches and falls quickly, clenching and unclenching the hand that just threw the glass. He threw a glass at the wall. He fucking threw a glass on the wall.

“What the fuck?” Rey breathes, looking back and forward between him and the now broken IKEA glass. “Really mature of y-“

“Don’t put fucking words in my mouth Rey!” He yells, glaring at her, teeth bared, finger pointing stiffly at her “- I have had fucking enough people telling me to this and that-”

“Oh really? Really?! Aren’t you just doing the same thing to me? Telling me what to do! Trying to coerce me into being something I am not. Maybe I don’t want that!” Rey takes a step back, eyes still flicking back and forth between the couch and him.

She sees his neck flush in anger. “Well, what do you want Rey!? Tell me! Fucking enlighten me!”

“I want to go home!” She cries.

“you can’t! you broke the law!”

“You could have let me go!”

 _Oh god please help me_ she hears him mutter under his breath and it is as if he is speaking more to himself than her, when he replies, “Are we still going on about this…”

“Well you seemed to have no issue leaving me to Plutt when I was 16!”

“Don’t…Don’t put that on me! Rey, we were two people in that!”

“a 26-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl! Sure – no power imbalance there. But don’t you worry. I fucking know how to shoot a gun now! I know how to hurt people!”

“Oh yeah! You want to shoot me! Shoot at me Rey!”

Provoked, Rey grasps the nearest thing, a banana, and throws it straight at his face. He ducks and has an absolute face of horror as if he didn’t really believe she would act on his behest. But Rey shoots first, always has - and for a beat or two, they stand immobile, until Rey makes a run for the office.

He speeds after her, calling her name. She manages to turn the knob, when he roughly pulls her back, lifting her up against his chest. “We are not done yet!” he yelps. She kicks the air as he lifts her. “You fucking monster! Let me go! Let me go!” The door kicks open roughly as her legs smash against the wooden frame. His arms are tight around her waist, but only until she flips her head backward, slamming it against his. He drops her, cursing.

Scrambling back on her feet she runs to the dining table and he struggles to get up, but nonetheless chases her, wobbly.

They are on either side of the table, her back against the windows, his against the living room. She has a tight grab on the leather chair, enough for her knuckles to white. His eyes are on her, concerned, angry, frustrated - “Rey. What is your fucking problem!? I am trying to help you.”

She spits at the table to prove her point. She doesn’t need and can’t be rescued. “Oh yeah!? Why didn’t you help me then!? Is it because I’m legal now? Hm!?”

He runs to the left, but she merely runs to her left – like two planets in orbit. Their gasps are heavy in the air, ragged, bitter. “I did try to help you! I did everything I could!”

“Liar!” She cries when he jumps and slides across the table. But she flips the chair, blocking his path as she runs to the couch. He follows her, his long limbs gaining her fast. She skips around the couch and he, in his most dramatic sense, decides to vault it, flipping it over and –

Pop.

“FUCK!” he all but yells as he falls to the ground, clutching his ankle.

Adrenaline rushing through her veins, Rey hears him, but ignores him, rushing for the bathroom, closing it with a bang, locking it. Her eyes out of pure instinct rifle the room for a weapon,  grabs the toilet brush and flips herself into the bathtub. Brush in hand – _ready_ – for what she isn’t sure.

-

She is sure she sits there for half an hour, tucked into the bathroom before all of her senses come back to her and she realizes what had transpired in the living room. Putting aside the brush, she hesitantly walks up to the door, hand softly turning the lock.

Rey takes a few breaths, then slowly creaks the door open.

The room is silent, the couch still overturned and on the floor with a hand on his chest, eyes shut closed in a pained expression, lies Ben Solo – Ben Solo with a twisted ankle.

He opens his eyes to look at her and it is as if the thirty minutes she has disappeared somehow manages to calm things down because all she hears him say, in a ragged voice, is:

“Can you please get me something frozen from the freezer?”

-

They sit on his bed as she with kind hands wrap his swollen foot with a frozen pea bag in a kitchen towel. On her hand, she notices the remaining black manicure she had a week ago.

A week ago.

When she was in Jakku.

When she placed crates of guns, Kalashnikovs, and automatics into the back of a truck, Finn keeping guard.

The black nail polish is slowly flaking, ripped in places and solid in others.

It seemed symbolic that at this moment, which she is sure will be a point of no return for her, that her past too seemed to dissolve – that finally whatever transgression that lay between her and Ben would dissolve.

Her hand traces his bare skin and he just watches her, intently, before he whispers. “Please. please don’t hate me.”

Rey swallows and for a while she doesn’t say anything, simply focusing on the task at hand. Once she is satisfied with the knot, she scoots up in bed and lies down next to him. Their faces close.

“I don’t hate you, Ben. I just…I just hate that you hurt me. That you left me.”

Ben closes his eyes and tilts his head so his forehead touches her temple. “I won’t leave you. Ever again.”

“Ben. I can’t stay” it hurts to say it, but she doesn’t want them to live in disillusion, she doesn’t want to have another moment like they just had, she doesn’t want them to part –

“Stay. Please stay with me.”

Rey’s eyes flutter shut as she tries to shield herself from his tempting words. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you”

“We can fix that. Ask me. Ask me anything.” He whispers softly against her hair. She sighs and gives in.

Gives in to that childish dream for one moment and raises herself by the elbow and looks down at this dark haired man. This man who looks at her as if there is nothing else. This man whose temper is as vile as hers. This man who still cares about her it seems.

“Ben-“ she starts. He hums in response. “Do you like me? Like… _like me like me?_ ”

“I do.” No hesitation.

She gathers her courage and sets her shoulders when she asks. “Do you want me?”

His Adam’s apple bob and when he speaks, she hardly hears it from the rush of blood to her head, from all her thoughts and doubts and - “yes”

They kissed in the lake, so they have touched lips before, passionate drunken kisses. However, the kiss they share now feels so much like a first kiss. How everything just centers at the exact spot in the universe, how her heart flutters, how his lips are so fucking soft, how that deep warm pool settles in her lower stomach. Rey finds that she feels just the same as the first time she had ice-cream. The first time she felt that sweet overwhelming cream touch her tongue, which sent both shivers of cold and streams of warmth through her body. Rey has kissed other people before, but nothing feels like this.

Nothing.

His hand is in her hair and they kiss and kiss and his tongue licks her lips and she opens for him – delirious, overwhelmed. _More. More._ She finds herself swinging her leg over his waist to straddle him, her center directly above his growing arousal. He stares at her like she’s the only light in the room and slowly but surely Ben’s hands roam up her body, grazing her breast, before reaching down to her butt, squeezing tightly. Gasp. She throws herself down at him and continues to devour his mouth as they tug and pull at each other. Like everything is too much but too little. Like it is not enough, but yet everything they’ve ever wanted.

He breaks the kiss and bites at her jaw, trailing kisses and nipples down her throat to her neck. His hands move and circle under her shirt, tracing her sunburned skin slowly, until he reaches her sports bra, just to push up under the fabric. His hands are warm as he cups her breasts, fingers grazing her nipple, pinching. She grinds against him, the sensation devastating.

 _Fuck_ , she hears him curse against her chin.

Then he stops and pushes her away, eyes wild and so dark. So dark.

“Do…” he struggles to catch his breath. “…do you want me?”

She does. In that moment she does. There’s nothing else she’d rather have. No man she’d rather show her scarred and tattered soul to. No man she’d rather have inside her. No man she’d rather have to make her feel good.

Rey grabs the hem of her shit, throws it over her head, then her bra. His hands are so large against her chest, and as he squeezes the soft swelled skin, her walls clench and she arches her back to rub against him, desperate. “Yes. Yes.” She rasps. He groans, but never once takes his eyes off her, off her chest. A dazed expression dresses his face.

They can’t go back now. She refuses.

She tugs his shirt off his head, which is a difficult task because they won’t stop kissing. He delves into her mouth and he tastes spicy, warm and like home. This does nothing great to her brain and her mind is mush and how they manage to get his shirt or her pants off is a mystery to her. His hand drifts down her stomach and her hips and settles between her legs, pushing her underwear aside. Rey has never liked doing this with any other man, but as he teases her and flirts, she suddenly finds herself squirming and dragging her fingers over his shoulders. He slips his finger inside and mutters incoherent words as he thrusts.

It is amazing. Rey doesn’t know how else to describe it, as she moves up and down with his hand.

It is stars, it is the feeling of riding roller coasters and before she even manages to prepare herself she tumbles over the edge with a scream.

She stands on her knees as he fumbles with his belt, trying to slide his pants down his calf, but winches when he moves his twisted foot wrong. “Shit”

His curse breaks Rey’s reverie and she slides back down his legs, gently tugging the black jeans off his good leg, along with his now sweaty underwear. Ben swallows and Rey is sure she has never seen anything so beautiful as this man, naked, ruffled hair, looking down at her like that. Like he has been waiting for this exact moment since forever.

He points at his nightstand and she reaches over, taking a condom from the drawer, rips it open and places it softly and gently over him. She exhales as she feels him in her palms, big, warm and pulsing – even through the latex.

No words have been spoken and Rey is sure that they don’t need words right now. It’s different from the lake, it is desperate and passionate yes, but now they are attentive, taking their time – there’s an aspect of love, of kindness, of want – whereas the lake was fearful and anxious.

The noise he makes when she slides down his length does it for her and she finds herself not wanting to take it slow. She wants this. She wants him and she pounds down on him hard, with viciousness, with _I want this so much_. Its fucking, not loving, not entirely at least and Ben is practically shouting as he digs his fingers into her hips and moves with her.

Her fingers search her clit quickly and she finds herself losing her rhythm when trying to focus on both things, but he catches up, taking over and angles her to go deeper, more, just more, thrusting erratically into her.

She cums clutching the headboard with her other hand and Ben biting the tender side of her left breast and at the sound and feeling of her walls tightening he follows.

-

Ben calls in sick for work for a very real reason since he can’t really walk, which means they have time to spend, so the next three days their main priority is discovering each other on various vertical surfaces. The couch, the tub, the kitchen, the bathroom counter, his bedroom only once and in his car.

He gives her a phone with a temporary number. _If you need to reach me._ She kisses him happily and when they settle down the couch, watching some random movie on a random channel she starts to believe that maybe his vision for her could work.

Which doesn’t explain what she does next. She texts Finn, the only number she knows in her head, on her phone when she is in the bathroom.

 _/ I got caught. I’m out on bail. can’t leave the state._ I am _O.K. R u O.K?_

At 2 am while they are sleeping, her on her stomach, she wakes to her phone flashing with a text.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 4: Ben finds out she’s texting her friends and they finally finally have a sit down discussion about what they want. Maybe Leia shows up to talk to Rey and offer to help her! Also pls make them more naughty  by Darth-Enrzo!
> 
> Thanks to Kathy for beta'ing (because this is happening!)

 

-

 

“Two ice creams please” Ben says half hanging out of the window of his car, one arm resting on the window another hand gripping the steering wheel. A muffled electronic voice answered back in broken sentences and Ben needs to repeated himself.

 

Rey sits silently next to him in the passenger seat, her hands pulling her thick cardigan closer around her body as she watches him dictate their order to the  inanimate object in front of them. He is treating her. 

 

Rey tries to appear calm and relaxed, but her hands fidget on their own, ripping at the seams of the cardigan. She feels so awkward around gifts. 

 

It was an odd thing, going out like this, doing things that didn’t center around his apartment, the grocery store or the local pizza place. It's a relief to bask in the warmth of the autumn sun, after two full weeks of constant rain and prickling cold winds. Her eyes flutter shut and she leans her head back to savor the heat.

Today seems like a good day.

 

He buys her chocolate with sprinkles and he goes for the mango; she fights to not devour the thing as soon as it hits her hand. Ben looks really nice today, dressed in a grey thick sweater, his hair cuffed back and a hint of stubble on his jaw. He catches her staring. Rey smiles at him contently and he leans forward to press a kiss to her cheek. 

 

It’s Saturday , and Ben has been back at work for one week; though he is limited to desk work. 

 

_ We should go out,  _ he had proclaimed after breakfast and Rey didn’t disagree. She has stayed here for a month and has become too very overly familiar overly familiar with Ben's apartment, with Ben's car, with Ben's grocery store, with Ben's delivery guys.

 

Sure, they had fought, but none of them had been as bad at the fight the night Ben has sprained his ankle. It had been blissful. It had been loving. It had been a dream. A dream a younger Rey would only dare to consider, a dream that she would hide in nooks and corners of her mind. However, she is here, and Ben kisses her good morning, goodnight, several times during the day. They cook together, they clean the apartment together, they watch stupid movies together and before they go to bed, they brush their teeth side by side in front of the bathroom mirror. It is simple bliss. Someone would call it a relationship. A relationship.

Rey relishes every moment.

She is almost convinced that this could work. She almost gives in to his dream, his fantasies. She almost gives in to the idea that she could finish high school and go to a university, study something, get a job, get married and maybe have kids.

Yes. That would be nice.

So nice.

However, Rey knows it’s a dream and, like any dream, there is a deep undercurrent od awareness that it only lasts for a while. An undercurrent of awareness that she needs to make the most of it while she can. So she contents herself, pushes away the knowledge that this will end and merely settles for enjoying her reverie with Ben.

A very pleasant reverie.

 

They drive to a viewing point not far off the city and sit in silence while eating the remainder of their ice cream. Something hot and insecure settles in Rey’s stomach as she lets the cool, prickling, almost liquid treat slide down her throat. Something akin to gratitude, but mostly feels like ineptitude. 

 

“So,” He begins. “You should have a trial date soon.” His voice almost tastes bitter in the air as he silently speaks the words. 

 

Rey nods, dipping the spoon back into her ice cream. “Have you heard anything?”

 

Ben flexes his shoulders and looks back down on the cold treat. “No. Not yet.”

 

“Will they send it by mail?”

 

“Probably.” He hesitates. “We should change your address officially to my place...or else we might miss it.”

 

Rey swallows, while she has lived with him for four weeks, but sharing an address? That was something a couple did. They weren’t a couple or...Rey is unsure. It hadn’t been something they had dared to air or hadn’t had time between discovering each other in...other ways.

 

“Can’t have that.”

 

“No.”

 

The city stretches far in front of them and the red and orange autumn tree cover the roads and nooks like a surreal Van Gogh. dots of colorful paint between greys.

 

“What do you want to do after the trial?” Ben asks softly, quietly, like he is afraid of what comes next. “I don’t want to assume anything, but…” He inhales “- I’ve been happy to have you stay with me.”

 

There. He almost said it. 

 

Rey smiles secretly and turns her head and torso so it rests sideways into the seat. “I’ve been happy too. I mean...not when we have fought or when we have to do the dishes, but everything else, yes.” She grins at him and he rolls his eyes, a small hesitant smile forcing its way to his lips.

 

It's a nice afternoon and Rey feels courageous, so she tries.“I miss my friends though.” His eyes snap to hers.

 

Her courage falters, but he seems to listen, so she pushes through. “I...I am afraid. I fear for them.” 

 

Her eyes wet and she moves her jaw, bracing herself, eyes fixed on his.

 

“Do  _... _ You know anything?”

 

Ben looks sad and he reaches out to cup her cheek. His hand is rough and calloused. Maybe they aren’t so different at all? Two lonely people with hands that have worked too hard.

 

He whispers, “I don’t.”

 

Rey nods and leans into his touch. “Will you tell me?”

 

His chest rises and falls once as if he needs to steel himself, as if he comes to a resolved answer, and then he says the words that matter.

 

“Of course.”

 

Rey smiles. She smiles so hard and finds herself surprised, ecstatic. 

 

“Awesome.”

 

He laughs and his thumb grazes her lip. “You have something there.”

 

Her tongue moves on its own accord, and she feels him watch her lick the cream off her lips. Before she even knows it, he leans in to capture a kiss.

 

His lips feel so soft, and a moan escapes her mouth. His hand trail soft lines down her stomach, moving to grip her roughly around her waist.

 

Rey has had sex in cars before. However, the thought of having him take her on the back seat makes her hot and wet. It isn’t before long that they manage to squeeze between the seat and into the space in the back of the car. Ben’s phone rings an urgent tune, but neither notices as he begins to cover her neck in kisses, mumbling low against her back. “all the things I want to do to you.” Rey doesn't really remember the last time she smiled this much. The last time someone just made her forget or someone who made her believe.

 

“Show me” she moaned.

 

As if the words so simple could entice an animalistic rut, he flips her over and parts her legs, with urgency and borderline violence. She likes that. Their eyes catch and the tentative smile becomes a full-blown flash of teeth. “hi” 

 

“Hi” he almost gasps the words before flashing his own and returning her smile. 

 

He kisses her greedily.

 

-

 

On the way home, they stop for groceries and she decides that for once it's her time to cook. She’ll cook him the only thing she knows.

 

Pasta.

 

He just bumps his fist on her shoulder when she picks out the canned tomatoes, beans, and dried spaghetti. Sure, he can make his fancy uptown pasta dishes with homemade linguini, but she will show him the pasta to feed men.

 

Ben just watches her place item on item into the cart with an amused smile but never dares to correct her.

 

-

 

“Should we really do this here?”

Something crashes on the floor, as she is being lifted by her ass on the countertop. A pot of pasta is boiling nearby,, but it’s really, really hard to focus right now.

She gasps as his arms encircle her waist, fingers tracing soft patterns under her shirt.

“iI's not sanitary, “She attempts again.

His mouth tugs at the corners; Rey feels it clearly as he nips against her neck, moving from her temple to her chest. Her back arches in an attempt to alleviate the tension building at her center and Ben merely uses the opportunity to pull down her shirt, sucking hard on the side of her breast.

A gasp escapes her mouth. “Ben. The food…” Forgotten and discarded when he emerged from the shower, hair still damp

He laughs, “never took you for someone who cared for hygiene.” She squirms as he bites a bit too painfully. Taking her hint, his mouth moves to suckle on her nipple, mumbling against her warm skin, “Scavenger”.

The pot with pasta boils over and with a loud bang. He moves quickly to remove it from the stove, then returns frantically to tug off her panties.

A part of Rey wants to laugh at this obscene situation. Parts of her know that whatever existed between them. It was frightening how they seemed even more attuned and drawn together than ever before, and frightening because Rey had never imagined them ever…ever meeting again. She had succumbed to the notion that he was but a fleeting presence in her life. A hurtful one.

Now he is eating her out on the counter. It definitely feels like he is trying his best to embody that expression. Mouth and tongue moving purposely, with intent, as he sucks and licks her lips and clit. She curses as he pulls on the sensitive little bud and something wild in her blossoms at the sensation, pulling hard on his hair as she almost screams.

 

It's a common thing, she knows, for orphans, lonely children and vulnerable people to look for love in strange places. She has known many who were in unhealthy relationships, who pretended and gave too much because the idea of loneliness was impossible to bear. The loneliness too dire, too hurtful. It was a confirmation that they mattered - I matter to someone, my parents should regret this.

 

Rey knows that the relationship she has with Ben is unorthodox; she knows that the foundation on which they built all of this is full of cracks, dents, and gaping holes. She knows. She knows, but Rey is sure that this thing they have is nothing like all of the others she has known. It isn’t unhealthy, and it isn’t only because they are two lonely people. Rey is sure that Ben cares for her because of who she is. 

 

It must be, because of the way he looks at her at night, with this all-consuming awe. It must be because this is more; it must be more He knows her, knows where she is from. Nothing is hidden from him. 

 

At least not her body, she whispers in her mind, as he carefully brings his mouth back on her. Ben pulls her to him harshly, lapping at her, quick fast licks. And oh god, the growling is obscene, like he’s a man gone without water for days. It doesn’t take long for her to feel it, the fluttering, the clenching. Rey is gonna cum, she is gonna cum hard.

 

There’s a desperation to the way Ben has sex with her like she is threatening to disappear into thin air and he needs to savor everything. At least that explains why he is almost literally eating her out at the moment. His mouth consumes her, licks her clean, and still, she is so wet and still he is still so determined; and then like everything they do, she crashes. 

 

“Fuck!” She nearly screams, as she doubles-over, her arms clutching at his shoulders, nails digging into her skin as her orgasm wracks her body.

 

He holds her through her tremors and hums a sweet tune against her cunt, but only for a moment before he pulls himself up and settles between her thighs. He nudges his cock against her folds, slowly trailing it up and down as he nuzzles his nose against hers. There’s a happiness to him, she thinks.

 

“You’re unreal. So unreal” he murmurs.

 

Rey doesn’t really understand how she qualifies for such a statement, but she takes it and she takes it when he none too gently slides into her. His cock stretching and filling her in a glorious way. 

 

_ How soundproof are these walls? _ she often reflects, because she always gasps and moans so loudly when he pounds into her, her bare ass sliding against the countertop. She relishes the feeling of giving in. She relishes the feeling of being loud. Rey is always in control, always on her guard, and it just feels absolutely divine to be taken. 

 

They move in tandem, and she can feel how he throbs as just  _ takes _ her. 

 

She licks him his jaw, tasting salt, soap and something so uniquely him as he drives up into her...

The lock on the front door turns.

Ben’s gaze snaps up from her neck, confusion, concern, and frustration flashing across his long features. “What th-“

The door opens and an older female voice echoes through the front hall. “Ben?”

“Shit!” His hand snaps to Rey’s hips as he pulls her abruptly from the kitchen counter while pulling up his own pants. Confused and slightly dazed, Rey ducks and darts for her discarded panties as soon as her feet hit the floor, pulling them on with lightning speed, in time for a short grey haired woman to turn the corner into the kitchen. 

Leia Organa.

Time stands still as Rey feels the powerful, stubborn mother of Ben Solo slowly take in the scene before her. Ben’s ruffled hair. Rey’s lack of clothes, and the mess currently decorating the kitchen and the floor. Something heavy settles in Rey’s stomach and bile rises in her throat. This woman is judging her. The woman who had dismissed her when she was young. The one who had convinced Ben that they should stop seeing each other. The woman who –

“So.” Leia says in a calm tone, placing her black handbag on the kitchen island. Her hands tap on the soft leather, never taking her eyes off either Rey or her son. “This is the girl you so desperately wanted me to bail out?”

Rey looks at the tall tree of a man next to her, but he says nothing. His jaw is set, lips thin, while he stares daggers at the woman who brought him into this world, and could so easily take him out of it.

The air is tense and despite the all-consuming anger she feels, Rey finds herself unable to respond. Rey has no churning emotions about the Leia Organa. However her emotions are not simple either. She feels anger, hate, regret, misery, a vile desire for revenge, and slowly a clear idea to grab the knife in front of her and force this bitter reminder of the past out of the apartment…

“Rey.” Rey’s eyes snap open, surprised that the woman still seems to recognize her, that she knows her name. “Will you be a dear and make me some coffee? I need to have a chat with my son here.”

“Mo-“ Ben starts, but Leia stills him with a flicker of her hand. Rey feels repulsed by how much power his mother seems to possess over him, how much she can influence him, how it seems no matter how hard Ben attempts to escape, his past comes back to haunt him. Kind of like Rey. From the corner of her eye, she sees his chest rise and fall, and then he opens his mouth. “Whatever you have to say to me. You can tell us both.”

In confirmation of that statement, Rey flexes her shoulders and straightens her back. Leia’s eyes seem to wander for a good solid minute before her mouth pulls into a soft knowing smile. “I am sure that will be a mistake but fine. Join me in the living room.” She casually throws that statement at them, before turning and elegantly marching to the black leather couch.

Rey touches Ben’s arm, curling her fingers around his biceps. Nervous. She is nervous all a sudden. The introduction of the woman who had initially pulled them apart is breaking the camaraderie between them, the connection. She feels Ben tensing on her touch and instead of giving her a comforting glance, he merely pulls away and grabs two coffee cups from the cupboard. Rey watches him and something bitter seeps through her body, because…well, she drinks coffee too and he only brought out cups for him and his mother.

However, Rey has not survived this long in the criminal underworld by not knowing when to keep her mouth shut. Reluctantly, but with eyes open for opportunity, she follows Ben to the couch arrangements, choosing to sit on a chair rather than next to him out of spite. He seems to notice that but doesn’t address it.

Leia tentatively leans over and pours herself a cup. She does it slowly, almost as if she is dragging out time by considering her words. Ben merely sits with his arms crossed, staring daggers at his mother, never reaching out to take a cup for himself. Neither does Rey. She folds her knees, to shield her panties from the older woman’s sight, but she knows she noticed. She knows the nature of this arrangement.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Leia opens her mouth. “I had a call from a certain someone’s boss this morning. A Mr. Snoke.” Ben doesn’t flinch, he merely narrows his eyes, suspicious of this conversation. “It seems as if the Organa center will be forced to close down for an investigation.” Leia flicks her gaze momentarily to Rey. “Three of its former inhabitants appear to have been involved in a series of serious offenses. Weapons trafficking. Drugs. Some even dare say  _ murder _ .”

Murder?! Rey’s brain screams. Who? What happened after they got separated? She does her best to keep the surprise from reaching her face, but Leia notices, not by a lot, but Rey knows the slight expanse of her eyes.

“One is caught obviously –“ head bobbing towards Rey. “ – but three are still on the run, and since they have all been associated with my business, the FBI has decided to close down the center for…an unknown amount of time.”

Leia sips from the cup.

Ben says nothing.

At his silence, his mother frowns, bringing the cup to rest on her thigh. “What do you have to say, Benjamin?”

“I am not sure what this has to do with me.”

There’s a smile on her lips and she takes out a sheet of paper and reads aloud. “They have tracked down a mobile number on one of the suspects it seems. A Finn. And what do you know, to my surprise, on the phone plan we share, I see five distinct times a number we own has texted that number.” Ben’s shoulder tenses, but he doesn’t look at Rey. There’s a panic rising in Rey’s chest, an all-consuming panic.  _ It was stupid, reckless. _ “So. I decided to be the one to get to the bottom of this before the FBI caught wind of this. Surely it must have been a mistake –“

Leia now looks at Rey. Really looks at her. “Alas. I see that it is not.”

Rey’s hand, on its own accord, snatches the paper roughly out of Leia’s hands. There’s no words or too many words, and Rey has no idea how to say them without spilling her secrets, without ruining this. Her eyes track the times she has texted Finn, checking the dates and hours.

Shit.

They match.

Something in the way Rey hesitates has brought Ben to his feet and he marches into the bedroom. There’s a distinct sound of a drawer opening hard, the content rattling and the lamps falling, shattering to the floor, at the force he exerts. He emerges with the phone he gave her, clutched in his hand, before not entirely shouting, but not entirely talking says, “Open it.”

Rey stills, her hands grasping the paper tightly in her hands. He growls, and marches to her, gripping her hand and presses her thumb on the small pad. It unlocks in a flash, and Ben is gone from her side, flicking across the screen, looking. Rey’s deleted all evidence from the phone every time they had texted, but…

Ben goes silent, eyes appearing to read something. A too long moment passes, then in an almost soft, bitter voice, he starts reading a text she must have received within the last hour. “We are locked up in a house. Waiting for Poe to come back with a new truck. We are maybe an hour from the border. Please come, before it’s too late.” Rey sees his knuckles white, before he with a yell, throws the phone across the room.

Leia and Rey flinch, but neither says a word.

“You. Fucking. Texted him.”

Trying to salvage something, Rey exclaims “I wasn’t going to go! I promise!”

“You said you didn’t know anything! What else have you been hiding!?” He turns to her, fire in his eyes, hurt, betrayal. “You said you wanted to do this! You said that part was over!”

“They are my friends!”

“They can’t possibly be your friends, Rey. You can’t possibly call these thieves and murderers friends.”

“You don’t know them! They have been there when you weren’t – “

“You silly, little girl. God. I should have known better.” He drags his hands through his hair, pulling at the edges. “You stupid girl”

 

Rey gapes at his response and before she reaches for the empty cup on the table to hurl it at him, Leia places a hand on her shoulder, calmly looking at her son, before saying. “I think she doesn’t deserve that, Ben.”

He growls, “What do you know?! Always putting everyone behind that stupid career of yours, that stupid center!” 

 

Ben heaves, his ears red and face flushed. “You are a fucking joke.”

Leia doesn’t dignify his words with a reply but tightens her hand on Rey’s shoulder. Rey wants to shake it off, repulsed, but she’s more angry with Ben and right now she takes whatever ball is in her court.

Ben’s eyes speed between her and his mother and he viciously marches to where the phone lies, picking it up, typing a message. Rey wants to run and take it back, but Leia digs her nails into her skin as if telling her ‘no. not yet’. They watch him for a second, as the phone p _ ings _ _,_ and he reads the new text. He snorts. “3 hours from here.”

Shit.

Shit!

“Wait! What!?” Rey yells. “Are you gonna go after them?! You can’t!”

He straightens his back. “It’s my job.”

“You can’t be this heartless!?” There’s something prickling at the corner of her eyes, she wants to ignore it, but everything is breaking. Shattering. Her body wants to move, her body wants to fight him, but her brain tells her it’s too late and Leia’s hand is an anchor.

A pause. “Watch me.” Ben gives her a look like this is hard for him too, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching for his jacket, grabbing his keys and heading for the door. Leia doesn’t say anything, and the tears, the tears are flowing now.

He hesitates at the door, fumbling with the keys before he steels himself and says harshly. “I will be back late. Don’t wait up”

The door clicks far too softly for the tension in the room.

“What the hell!?”

It is as if the frozen lake that has trapped her for the last couple of minutes thaws and Leia’s hand is suddenly poison, digging in and threatening to consume. She whips her shoulder out of her grip and turns to face the much older looking woman. 

 

“What is your problem!? Do you have it out for me or something!? Why do you so desperately want to fuck me over!?”

Leia doesn’t smile, not entirely, but something understanding and empathic crosses her features and it is as if she is waiting for Rey to calm before she speaks. “I did not know you were here. I genuinely hoped it was a mistake.” Rey looks at this woman in disbelief, her mouth gaping. Is she serious. “However, I see now I was in the right. It would have been a matter of time…and then it would not allow me to do this. It would force you into the hands of Snoke.”

Leia sits down on the couch, padding the cool leather fabric, urging Rey to sit. She refuses.

“What do you mean? You didn’t have to tell Ben. You didn’t have to tell him like that!”

“I did need to tell him. But you’re right, I didn’t have to say it like that. Didn’t I say it would be best if you were not here?”

“You really are a vile, manipulative wench, aren’t you!” It hurts. So much.

The older woman looks sad, but not offended, as if she has spent a life hearing these words thrown at her so often. Her voice is soft as she folds her hands in her lap, regal looking, so unlike what Rey is. “I have been looking for this opportunity to clear the air. Back then I was not of sound mind, but please let me allow myself to explain.”

Rey shakes her head in disbelief. The audacity. But she doesn’t move and part of her, who would never admit to it, yearns to hear it, yearns to be able to throw her pathetic excuses in her face.

Leia’s voice is firm “Rey. What was done was not kind to you. I will admit that I was aware that what happened would fully push you further into the hands of Plutt.”

“So it was revenge, wasn’t it? You just wanted to get at me for embarrassing you.” Rey hisses under her breath. Part of her refusing to believe that this woman would so bluntly admit to such a thing.

“No. I do not want to disappoint you, but this family has seen worse scandals. And my own son has done far worse things than falling for a sweet and beautiful young woman. It can happen to even the best of us.”

Rey reluctantly sits down on the arm of the chair, arms crossed, brows furrowed. “Then what? How have I wronged you?”

There’s an amused smile on Leia’s face, as if she feels pride at Rey’s boldness, and Rey struggles to curb her pride.

 

“Rey. I know you are a smart and resourceful woman, so I need you to listen now. Separating you and Ben had a lot more to do with me wanting to protect my son – but most of all it was to protect the center. It was to protect the kids. If I allowed you to continue your unorthodox relationship, hundreds of kids would find themselves with no help, with no support because of some crazy ass political agenda against my son and me. They were already discussing my inability to run a welfare center before Ben...what do the kids say? Right. Ben ‘caught feelings’ for you.”

“Why do you insist on talking as if we were in a relationship? It wasn’t like that. It never was.”

“Maybe you say that now, but what had happened just six months from then on? I do not know your heart, but I know my son, and his frustration and misery during that time can definitely only be wedded to the fact that he felt more than he ought to.”

“Well. It doesn’t matter.” Rey scoffs in her seat. “Things have been done and I’m fucked up for good now.”

Leia’s smile turns sad. “If there is one thing I have learned in my age, it is sometimes one needs to be truthful, one needs to be honest and the least of all admit to faults of their own.” Eyes downcast, the older woman rubs on the nail polish on her fingers. Old, wrinkled hands. “It was a selfish act, it was preservation. My pride had a lot to do with it. However, Rey, my pride is not what persuaded me. Tell me, do you wish for the 138 children to go back to the life they had had before? You were one of them, you know what they were facing. What would happen to them if the center was closed”

Leia’s eyes snaps to hers. “Rey. You were caught in the crossfire and I am sorry for the pain that has befallen you because of that. I will admit that it was on me. But Rey, I will not apologize for prioritizing the well-being of many,  _ many _ children – who today have managed to get on a positive path – than to protect one. I will not apologize for ensuring that my son had a future, because he is my son.” 

 

There’s a truth Rey can’t deny, but Rey is good at pretending.

Leia shifts in her seat, bringing her closer to Rey, and slowly, hesitantly, places a hand on top of her, squeezing it just a bit. “It doesn’t change that it hurt you, it doesn’t change that I do not often think of how I failed you –“ Leia inhales a deep breath, as if admitting to something that has long been weighing her shoulders “ – I want to tell you that and I want you to remember, that I will help you if you ever need it, because I owe you that. I do not expect you to forgive me, I do not expect you to ever reach out, but I need to tell you this.”

“I am here to help you Rey. To get us even. I know how much these people mean to you, and I know Snoke – tell me, did this Finn tell you the address of where he is staying?”

-

  
  
  



End file.
